Everywhere you look, artificial intelligence systems have become integral to many areas of the business world. But how much of a difference does it make when it comes to the field of accounting?
For six accounting students at Binghamton University’s School of Business (Ernest Pan, Bonnie Huang, Carly Newman, Keith Pasia, Michal Seinfeld, and Grace Sharon), this question meant that they were responsible for six accounting firms, including: helped launch a classroom project exploring the use of AI. Big 4. The results yielded some unique insights.
“We wanted to approach this from all angles. Some say AI is good for accounting because it improves productivity, while others think it will one day replace accountants. ”Pang said. “One of its strengths is the ability to analyze large data sets, but to alleviate concerns around AI, the policies of at least the big four accounting firms are to allow accountants to perform tasks while still allowing them to make critical decisions. We encourage them to leverage AI.” “
Students learned that in 2015, 10% of organizations are using AI or plan to do so soon. By 2019, that number had jumped to 37%. After analyzing some of the ways accounting firms have implemented AI into their business strategies, the six students presented their findings to their classmates in Assistant Professor of Accounting Flora Sun’s cost accounting class.
As the students found in their research, each of the big four companies – PwC, Deloitte, EY, and KMPG – are adopting AI in similar ways.
EY announced a $1.4 billion investment in AI in September 2023, leveraging AI to enhance customer engagement through market insights and social monitoring, chatbots, and optimize operations and cybersecurity. I did. As a result, EY’s global GDP increased by 1.4% and contributed to global competitiveness through a unified data-first approach. For PwC, which announced a $1 billion investment in AI over the next three years in April 2023, its uses include summarizing relevant data, performing tax risk analysis, and predicting customer revenue. As a result, PwC has seen productivity increases of at least 20% in IT, finance, and marketing, as well as other benefits in areas such as customer service through reduced call wait times. Deloitte will launch an internal AI platform in fall 2023 that will be used to improve workplace efficiency by assisting employees with daily tasks such as writing code, creating content, and research. With that comes internal debate over whether AI will create or destroy jobs, and questions about how confident employees can be in its reliability. KPMG is leveraging AI in several ways, including KPMG Ignite, an AI platform for rapid problem-solving support, and KPMG Trusted AI, which helps you design, build, deploy, and use AI technology solutions responsibly and ethically. I am using. The company employs a variety of other generative AI initiatives to support content generation and customer engagement and provide data-driven insights. In addition, KPMG has entered into strategic partnerships with Microsoft and IBM to support the development of custom AI solutions for various industries and strengthen our data analytics and compliance capabilities.
When researching mid-sized companies such as Grant Thorton and RSM, SOM students learned that AI is primarily used for risk, compliance, and internal audit work. Helped create a framework for addressing client issues.
Seinfeld said their research revealed that the Big Four and midsize companies appear to understand the risks of AI regarding privacy and governance issues.
“It’s also clear that each company is playing its part in reducing risk by putting in place internal systems of checks and balances, and as far as we know, it’s working across all companies,” he said. It seems like there is.”
Sharon said it’s not surprising that large accounting firms would want to be proactive about AI, which has become “a household name at this point,” but that various accounting firms are He said it would be interesting to see how they prioritize usage.
When starting the project, team members assumed that AI would be used in a more comprehensive way, but found that different AI systems were being used for specific tasks within the field. .
“If this was, say, five years ago and very few people had heard of AI or ChatGPT, it would be really confusing to see this,” Sharon says. “But it makes sense that these large companies would devise ways to leverage these systems effectively without risking putting their internal data at risk.”
